Ruling: Apple did not infringe HTC graphics patents

Apple scores another legal win against HTC. The International Trade Commission …

The International Trade Commission has sided with Apple in a patent infringement investigation brought by HTC subsidiary S3 Graphics. An initial decision found that certain Macs may have violated some of the patents asserted by S3, but the final decision from the ITC staff determined that Apple did not infringe on S3's graphics compression technology. The decision gives Apple another win in its ongoing legal battle with smartphone maker HTC.

S3 Graphics first brought its patent infringement complaint to the ITC in May 2010, with an administrative law judge (ALJ) determining in July 2011 that none of Apple's mobile devices violated any S3 patents. But while two of the four asserted patents had been ruled invalid by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), certain claims of the remaining two patents were still considered valid. The ALJ said that Macs using integrated Intel graphics violated three of those claims. HTC bought out S3 Graphics just after the initial decision was announced.

More details about the case emerged at the end of July, however. Most important was the fact that the USPTO had just ruled the remaining claims of S3's two patents in the suit to be invalid. Furthermore, AMD also has claims to the patents in the suit. This gave Apple an advantage during the last part of the ITC investigation—the final review and decision by the six-person ITC staff panel.

Ultimately, the panel rejected AMD's attempts to intervene, so there's still some confusion over whether AMD or S3 actually control the patents in question. That didn't matter one whit for Apple, though, as the panel reversed the ALJ's initial decision and concluded that Apple was not guilty of any infringement of S3's asserted patents.

HTC isn't down and out just yet, though. In September, S3 filed an additional ITC complaint aimed specifically at Apple's iOS devices, while HTC has filed a federal patent infringement suit of its own using recently acquired patents on integrated PDA functions in a wireless device and wireless communications methods.